Control
A single secret service has the weapons to arrogate to itself complete political power. It may therefore pose a potential threat to the central political authority.
In dictatorships, a close relative of the dictator often heads the secret police. For example, Saddam Hussein, as head of the State Internal Security Department placed his secret police under the authority of his first cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid.
In addition, secret police has a strong tendency to view potential political enemies as concrete threats, even if they do not exist. In some cases, a dictator may manufacture such enemies for the purpose of directing national output toward a common goal, there by supplying an image of national unity.
Read more about this topic: Secret Police
Famous quotes containing the word control:
“Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which it is intended to express, whether verbally or in writing, or in any other way, the real process of thought. Thought’s dictation, free from any control by the reason, independent of any aesthetic or moral preoccupation.”
—André Breton (1896–1966)
“Who can control his fate?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“We as a nation need to be reeducated about the necessary and sufficient conditions for making human beings human. We need to be reeducated not as parents—but as workers, neighbors, and friends; and as members of the organizations, committees, boards—and, especially, the informal networks that control our social institutions and thereby determine the conditions of life for our families and their children.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)